For my summer reading, I read Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service. The book focused on successful business practices from the customer service prospective.   I have worked in the service industry before and there where many tips and practices that I could relate to personally.

                One chapter of the book stood out to me the most.  Chapter 11, “Creating Trust in an Insecure, Suspicious World” really hit home with me.  I believe that this aspect of trust is one that so often gets over looked in the business world.   The past two summers I have worked as a swimming instructor teaching children and adults to swim.  There is a strong level of trust that you must have with both the student and the parents’ of the students.   I quite literally had my students’ life in my hands.  Without trust the process wouldn’t work.  The trust that I built was crucial to the return of customers.  I also found that the best way to create trust was communication.  Talking to parents about what was going on in the water allowed them to feel a part of the process.

                Although my work in the IC will be different in nature, the principles of building trust and re3lationships is still valid.  When working in an academic setting it is important that your clients trust you and the information your provide them with.  It is important that they know you are a credible resource.  Just like my experience in the pool, it is the relationships and trust that bring customers back.